Troop 380

Monday, February 27, 2006

GPS Mapping

The sun was in our eyes and the wind in our hair. We could smell the fresh air as we breezed down the straightaways and negotiated tight curves surrounded by expensive machinery. No, we weren’t cruising in a Ferrari; we were learning how to GPS map at Camp Guyasuta. For the last few meetings Mr. Stewart has announced that the Allegheny County Parks department is looking for help to GPS map the county parks. This was our first training session. We met at the ranger’s station at Camp Guyasuta for orientation and to familiarize ourselves with the equipment. The GPS units cost $5,000 apiece and the antennas were another $2,000! They would allow us to hike the trails, taking position measurements and making notes about each point. The data would all eventually be combined into a specialized computer drawing program and new maps of the parks would be generated. The county parks ranger supervising the project showed us a recent map made of Hartwood Acres and the results were amazing. Superimposed over the old map, it was clear why the new ones were necessary. Old trails were corrected and new ones were now shown. The Hartwood mapping had been done by a trail biking club but they are no longer involved in the project. Thus the need for us. The goal is to send several teams out to each of the county parks between now and the beginning of May. (Some are already done.) By May, we will need to suspend mapping as the tree cover interferes enough with GPS signals to drag the process to crawl. By the end of the day at Guyasuta, we all had hiked and played with the equipment enough to feel comfortable to move on to the real thing. Tentatively, the next session is scheduled for March 12 (a Sunday) at Deer Creek park. This is a great Scout activity with a chance to enjoy some outdoor time mixed with providing a vital service to our community. If you’d like to join in, there is still time. We’d like to put together another two or three teams of one adult and two scouts. You can learn the equipment on the job at our next outing. Talk to Mr. Stewart if you are interested. And of course, scouts will receive credit for service hours for time spent on the project. Philmont scouts can get credit conservation hours  towards their 50 mile hike award. I hope to see you there.

Jerry Vockley
Scoutmaster, Troop 380
posted by Troop 380 at 5:02 AM

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